Monthly Archives: May 2004

…courtesy of the ever-observant Dafydd ab Hugh. Bob Barr in the Washington Times: This series of occurrences (along with others) collectively paint a scenario eerily similar to that presented LBJ a generation and a half ago. We should be thankful George W. Bush does not appear to have become immobilized by self-doubt and uncertainty as did his Johnson in 1968. Well, it’s happened to all of us. »

Max Boot tries to look at Iraq empirically, as I did earlier today. He isolates three indicators: casualties, nation-building, and abuses. (I did not consider abuses because I don’t think they have much to do with our progress or lack thereof and because I don’t know how one would measure this objectively). Boot thinks things are not going badly on these three fronts, and that the panic about our progress »

I enjoyed this Associated Press picture of John Kerry at a diner in Green Bay, Wisconsin. When he’s not campaigning, how often do you suppose Kerry eats at lunch counters with ketchup bottles, plastic glasses, packaged creamers and those bronze coffee pots? It’s a dismally familiar scene for most of us, but one that I don’t think is Kerry’s usual ambiance. And the fact that the “ordinary people” seated with »

If you think it’s outrageous for the French, Russians, Chinese et al. to be lecturing America on the fine points of morality in the wake of the Abu Ghraib mini-scandal, you’re right. Lileks has chapter and verse. Don’t miss it. »

Ann Coulter sees Abu Ghraib as the new Tet offensive: “By lying about the Tet offensive during the Vietnam War, the media managed to persuade Americans we were losing the war, which demoralized the nation and caused us to lose the war. . . .Now liberals are using their control of the media to persuade the public that we are losing the war in Iraq. . . .The constant drumbeat »

as discerned by Robert Alt at No Left Turns. Here is part of it: “We believe that President Bush lied. We believe that Prime Minister Blair lied. We believe that when Hillary Clinton and Dick Gephardt voted for the war based on the same intelligence relied upon by Bush and Blair, they made reasonable decisions based on the intelligence available at the time. “We believe that the administration did not »

It’s usually impossible to read about the British poet Philip Larkin without coming across his famous stanza from “Annus Mirabilis”: Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me) – Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban And the Beatles’ first LP. Over on Slate Macalester College Professor Stephen Burt takes an informed look at Larkin on the occasion of the publication of a new edition of »

Here is a Reuters photo story on Michael Moore: “Even in Hollywood, some people find filmmaker Michael Moore obnoxious, opinionated, grating and often less than accurate — but they say these are qualities that will pay off big when ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ his new film bashing President Bush, is released.” Obnoxious and inaccurate–just what the left is looking for. Yikes–having posted that picture, I think it’s time to go cruising the »

When Al Gore kicks back this weekend and treats himself to the kind of entertainment he deserves after his marvelous appearance yesterday before Move On, he will undoubtedly seek out “The Day After Tomorrow,” Hollywood’s new contribution to the global warming debate. Gore and Move On have already given the film a four-star rating, calling on Americans to see the film. Gore started promoting the film even before he was »

Unlike Al Gore, Captain Ed at Captain’s Quarters finds a highly plausible “root cause” for the abuses at Abu Ghraib — the indiscipline of several who committed the abuses. Ed bases his argument on an article in the New York Times, no less. It shows that three of the seven participants, including the ring-leader, had long histories of poor discipline. Ed concludes: “People laugh at military discipline, or worse, consider »

Here is a profile of Abu Hamza, the radical cleric who is about to be tossed out of England and sent, we trust, to the U.S. for prosecution. Tim Blair provides an alternative profile: I am a: One-eyed hook-handed hate preacher Residence: Finsbury Park Interested in: beating [um] meeting women For: walks along the beach, romantic dinners, Holy War My Age: 47 Speak: Arabic, English, Hate Children: Two wonderful sons! »

One of the great differences between liberals and conservatives is how the two camps go about explaining misconduct. Conservatives prefer straightforward, old-fashioned explanations that focus on a flaw in those who commit the misconduct — greed, lust, cruelty, or (in extreme cases) evil itself. For liberals, such explanations are unsatisfyingly superficial. Misconduct must have a root cause, but liberals regard basic human instincts such greed, lust, and cruelty as insufficiently »

…as John Kerry, Al Gore, Tom Daschle and the Democrats do politics 24/7, the grownups continue to try to prevent us from being blown up. The Associated Press has an uncharacteristically objective rundown on the seven individuals named as terror suspects yesterday by the Justice Department. The most striking fact is the ease with which al Qaeda operatives travel internationally. It is perhaps hopeful, though, that one of the suspects »

The deep thoughts of Al Gore fisked by Rocket Man below in “Gore gone crazy” and explored capably by Whiskey in “The abyss gazes into Gore” over at Captain’s Quarters deserve much further reflection. Their bizarre distance from reality, their twisted imputations of malignity, their excess, their luxuriance in defamation and falsehood, are obviously symptomatic. I think it is a mistake, however, to attribute them narrowly to Gore’s mental imbalance »

The most important item in the news this morning is this article in the Wall Street Journal: One thing we’ve learned about Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein is that the former dictator was a diligent record keeper. Coalition forces have found–literally–millions of documents. These papers are still being sorted, translated and absorbed, but they are already turning up new facts about Saddam’s links to terrorism. One striking bit »

Al Gore’s speech today before a Move On audience in New York was so over the top, so around the bend, so surreal in its hateful portrayal of America and the Bush administration, that it stakes out ground never before occupied by a prominent (or formerly prominent) American politician. To fisk the entire speech, pointing out and documenting all of its hundreds of inaccuracies, would take days if not weeks. »